"Can't hear you in the back," someone else added.

He tried again, this time more forcefully. "Thank you all for coming. I know that you're all probably just as spooked as we are right now, so I appreciate the effort. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Seymour Peters, and I'm the fire chief for Walden."

Christy squeezed my hand hard, and I turned to look at her. She trembled with suppressed laughter. Grinning, I mouthed the guy's name.

"Seymour Peters," Russ whispered. "See more peters. Jesus Christ! His parents must have really hated him."

Christy snickered harder. It made me feel good to see her laughing after the morning's strangeness. Cranston was shaking with silent mirth as well. His shoulders jiggled up and down.

"As I'm sure you're all aware," Chief Peters continued, "we've had something of a situation this morning. Heck, I guess you can look around and see for yourself that something's happened. Unfortunately, we don't know what that something is."

"Succinctly put," a man standing near us grumbled. "Tell us something we don't know."

A rumble went through the crowd as people began to share their opinions and theories. The chief held up his hands and pleaded for silence, and they slowly fell quiet again. Before he spoke again, the Chief coughed several times-dry, rasping, and forceful. I made him for a smoker.

"What we do do know," he continued, "is that our community has lost all of our utilities. We've tried contacting fire stations and emergency services in nearby towns, but so far we've had no luck. Cell phones and land lines aren't functioning. There are no incoming signals of any kind, including television and radio. That applies to all cable and satellite signals as well. There's nothing on the emergency or citizen's band channels either, and the ham radio frequencies have also gone silent. My men tell me that the internet is down, too. Have any of you spoken with anyone from the outside since this morning? Friends or family? Maybe a coworker? Delivery person? Anyone like that?" know," he continued, "is that our community has lost all of our utilities. We've tried contacting fire stations and emergency services in nearby towns, but so far we've had no luck. Cell phones and land lines aren't functioning. There are no incoming signals of any kind, including television and radio. That applies to all cable and satellite signals as well. There's nothing on the emergency or citizen's band channels either, and the ham radio frequencies have also gone silent. My men tell me that the internet is down, too. Have any of you spoken with anyone from the outside since this morning? Friends or family? Maybe a coworker? Delivery person? Anyone like that?"

n.o.body raised a hand or volunteered that they had. The chief nodded. His expression was grim.

"Some of you probably had-I mean have have-loved ones who went to work or traveled outside the town limits. Have any of you heard from them since they departed? Have any of them come back?"

Again, n.o.body in the crowd volunteered that they had.

"The crew and I have been discussing our situation. Now understand, we live here, too, and some of us have got loved ones missing as well. So believe me when I tell you that we understand what you're going through. That being said, we think it's best if everyone stays in their home for the time being. It's dark out here, and we don't need people wandering the streets. I know it's probably tempting to search for your families, but doing so right now is only going to create more problems. We ask that you remain indoors until we are able to better determine exactly what has happened."

"f.u.c.k that noise," somebody yelled.

The chief broke into another coughing fit. The fireman manning the sound system handed him a bottle of water. He accepted it eagerly, unscrewed the cap, and sipped. Then he faced the crowd again.

"I know it's not an easy thing to ask, but I'm asking just the same. It's for your safety, as well as the safety of my men."

"It's them terrorists, isn't it? It's the Al Qaeda?"

I recognized the speaker from earlier. She was the woman who had felt sorry for Dez.

"We don't know what it is," the chief responded. "But we intend to find out. Let's not jump to any conclusions yet. We've decided to send a crew to the next town, Verona, to see if they can determine what's happened and how large of an area this thing has affected. The plain truth is that we don't know if this is a national, regional, or localized event. Meanwhile, the main thing we all need to do is remain calm. Panic leads to injury, and with the phones out, you have no way of calling 911. I would also like to suggest that we conserve our resources until we better understand our situation. Once the men have returned, we'll inform all of you-probably by calling another meeting or going door-to-door. So until then, just stay put and again, remain calm. We're doing our best, and we thank you in advance for your cooperation and patience. We'll get through this together."

"What a crock of s.h.i.t," a bald man in front of us muttered. "Who the h.e.l.l put this guy in charge? He doesn't know any more than the rest of us."

"Hey," Russ said, tapping him on the shoulder. "Why don't you cut him some slack? The man is just trying his best."

The bald man scowled. "I heard you snickering at his name."

"Maybe," Russ admitted, "but that doesn't mean I question his authority. If he's got a plan-and it sounds to me like he does-then I say we respect it."

"Who cares what you say? What-you know him or something?"

"No. I don't know him. I don't know you either. I'm just saying that maybe we ought to work together. That's all. If you don't like it, then maybe you should leave now, rather than bringing everybody else down."

Cranston nodded in agreement. "All this negativity is no good. We need to get along."

I thought for a moment that the bald man was going to take a swing at Russ and Cranston both. Instead, he just stared at them. His expression hovered between p.i.s.sed off and incredulous. Then he turned his attention back to the chief. If he had more opinions, he didn't share them with us.

Christy shivered against me.

"You okay?" I asked.

She nodded. "I'm just cold. I hope this doesn't last much longer. It's creepy, standing out here in the dark."

"It's not completely dark," I said. "Not like over there."

I pointed toward the shadowed horizon and immediately regretted it. Acknowledging it seemed to make it more real somehow-seemed to solidify it. At the time, I thought that was just in my head. Thought that I was being superst.i.tious. But now I have to wonder.

Had the darkness heard me, even then? The more I think about it, the more I'm inclined to believe it might have.

Recovering from another bout of coughing, the chief then went over some safety concerns, advising people with generators to make sure they were well vented and talking about fireplaces and the hazards a.s.sociated with kerosene heaters and candles. I kind of zoned out during that part of the speech.

When he'd finished with his safety checklist, the chief asked, "Are there any questions?"

There were. Lots of them. People had him repeat things he'd already said and wanted him to speculate on what he thought had occurred and wanted to b.i.t.c.h about the situation in general. A few seemed to consider this meeting a chance to share their personal stories, telling the chief and the crowd about their husband or wife who'd left for work or about what they were doing when the darkness came. The chief did a good job of hiding it, but I could see that he was getting annoyed. In truth, I was too. Then Russ broke the tension. He raised his hand, and the chief wearily motioned to him.

"Yes, sir? You have a question?"

"Yeah," Russ called. "Where's these refreshments you said you were gonna have?"

That earned a boisterous round of laughter from both the firemen and the crowd. A few people even applauded.

"Glad you asked," the chief said. "We've got a buffet set up inside the firehouse. It's not much, I'm afraid. Hot coffee, tea, bottled water, fruit, and some boxes of doughnuts. But with the power out, I imagine most of you could use a good cup of java. Brewed it myself. It's dark and bitter, but it will definitely keep you awake. Help yourselves. We only ask that you keep things orderly. You are welcome to stay here for a while, if you like, though I imagine it will get pretty crowded. As I said before, the best thing you can do is return to your homes and remain calm. We're all in this together, and we'll get through it together."

The chief turned off the public address system and clambered down from the fire truck. People gathered around him with more questions or just wanting to shake his hand. A few people headed home. Much of the crowd proceeded into the firehouse, but it was slow going and the line jammed up at the doors and spread out into the parking lot. Cranston took a spot in the procession.

"I'll catch up with you guys later," he said. "I could use some coffee and I never turn down free doughnuts."

Russ glanced at Christy and me. "You guys feel like standing in that line?"

"I've got a better idea," I said.

"What?"

"Let's head to the edge of town. I'd like to see for myself what's going on."

Christy paled but said nothing. Russ shook his head.

"I don't know, Robbie. You heard what the chief said, same as the rest of us. Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"No," I replied. "I'm not sure. I'm not sure of anything at this point. But with everything that's going on, I'd much rather see what we're up against than stand around drinking coffee and making small talk with a bunch of neighbors I don't know."

Russ frowned. "Why? Chief Peters said that they're gonna send a few firemen out and they'll let us know what's happening."

"Yeah, but I'd rather get a head start on that. If it's as bad as I think it is-and let's be honest, guys, this is some bad f.u.c.king s.h.i.t-then these people are gonna find out soon enough that there might not be any more coffee and doughnuts for a while. I'd rather stock up on things we need before that happens."

Christy appeared shocked. "You think people are going to start looting?"

I shrugged. "They're scared. The chief's speech will keep them calm for a while. Hot coffee and doughnuts make things seem almost normal. But eventually, they're going to walk back outside and see the sky, and those fears are gonna come back. And who knows what will happen then? Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this will all pa.s.s. But I think we need to start thinking about ourselves, just in case."

It took a little more convincing, but both of them agreed to go to the edge of town with me. Our plan was to check things out for ourselves. If it looked as bad as we feared, then we'd come back and figure out what to do next. I hoped that wouldn't mean stealing what we needed to survive, but if it did, then we wanted to do it before everyone else had the same idea.

We walked back home and piled into our beat-up old Pontiac, which was parked alongside the curb. Russ sat in the back. I turned the key and the engine sputtered to life. The headlights beat back the murky shadows. On a whim, I tried the radio. Maybe everybody was wrong. Maybe we'd hear something after all. Maybe we'd come across something-some broadcast from one of the nearby towns or even a barely audible transmission letting us know that things were all right and that everything would be fine. I pressed the scan b.u.t.ton and it ran through the FM frequencies twice, but there was nothing. No static, no ghost broadcasts, no weird noises of feedback. No sound of any kind. Then I tried the AM band but just got more of the same. I switched it over to the satellite radio, which we'd had installed in the car with our last income tax return check, but the satellite bands were also silent.

"Dead air," I joked, but n.o.body laughed.

I flipped on the CD player and Vertigo Sun filled the car.

It was the only sun we had.

We drove into the darkness.

CHAPTER SIX

The darkness on the edge of town was different from the darkness around it.

That was the first thing we noticed. We'd seen hints of that before, when we were standing in town and looking toward the horizon. It became more noticeable as we approached, and once we were actually there, the difference became unsettlingly apparent.

We drove through town, crossed over Route 60 and reached the outskirts of Walden, stopping in front of the big sign on Route 711. The side of the sign that proudly proclaimed You Are Now Entering Walden, Population 11,873 You Are Now Entering Walden, Population 11,873, faced into the darkness. The side facing us said, You Are Now Leaving Walden. Please Come Back Soon You Are Now Leaving Walden. Please Come Back Soon. The words seemed to hang in the air, as if the sign were calling out to those who had already entered the darkness.

Please come back soon...

But we hadn't left. We were still there.

I checked the fuel gauge. We had half a tank. I pulled onto the side of the road and put the car in park. Then I considered our options. No way was I turning the headlights off. We needed them. But while I needed to conserve gas, I was hesitant to leave the lights on without the motor running. If the battery died, we were in for a long walk home, and under these conditions, wasting fuel was preferable to shuffling through the shadows. I decided to leave the engine running. As an afterthought, I turned the music off. I figured we didn't need that distracting us while we investigated.

After I opened the door and got out of the Pontiac, Russ and Christy did the same. We shut the doors quietly and moved slowly. The air felt heavy. Oppressive, like before a summer storm. I'd parked the car so that the headlights were pointed into the darkness beyond the sign, but it didn't do much good. It was like the beams were hitting a wall. Just beyond the road sign, the blackness swallowed them up.

It's hard to describe something that's not describable, but f.u.c.k it-I'll give it a shot. Imagine that you're sitting in a dark room at night with no lights or candles or anything else for a source of light. Imagine that there's darkness all around you. Total and complete darkness. Okay? Now imagine that just beyond that darkness is a different kind different kind of darkness, blacker than the rest of the darkness around you. It seems to have substance, even though you know it doesn't. It's like tar or India ink. It ripples when you look at it out of the corner of your eye, or maybe it seems to shimmer. You can see the change with your naked eye-the razor line where mere gloom changes into obsidian. of darkness, blacker than the rest of the darkness around you. It seems to have substance, even though you know it doesn't. It's like tar or India ink. It ripples when you look at it out of the corner of your eye, or maybe it seems to shimmer. You can see the change with your naked eye-the razor line where mere gloom changes into obsidian.

That's what it was like, standing there in the middle of the road.

"Jesus..." Christy's whisper seemed to dissipate, as if the darkness were swallowing sound like it did the headlights.

Russ clicked on his flashlight, shined it into the impenetrable blackness, and stepped forward. I grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

"Don't go near it."

"Why not?"

"Because it's wrong. Don't you feel it?"

Russ stared at me for a moment without responding, then shrugged me off and turned back to the curtain's edge. He moved the flashlight around, directing the beam at different angles into the gloom. Finally, he spoke.

"This is some f.u.c.king weird s.h.i.t, guys."

Christy and I nodded in agreement. I was about to respond when Christy silenced us.

"Listen," she said.

We did.

At first I didn't hear anything. But after maybe thirty seconds, I noticed that there were sounds in the darkness. They started out quiet but grew louder as we listened-slithering noises, growls and grunts and muted, warbling shrieks. All sounded as if they were coming from a long distance away. Some of the noises sounded human. Others didn't. But in addition to those sounds, each of us heard something else, too. The darkness spoke to us. It whispered to us with familiar voices long unheard. Later, when we compared notes, we learned that each of us had heard something different.

The darkness spoke to Christy with her father's voice. He'd died of a sudden heart attack two years earlier. Secretly I'd always thought that his death had a lot to do with Christy's dependence on drugs and alcohol. I mean, we both liked to party, but for her, the partying had become something more after her father pa.s.sed away.

Russ heard his ex-wife's voice in the darkness, which was funny, he said, since before that moment, he hadn't heard from her in more than twelve years. He didn't know anything about her, other than she'd moved to North Carolina and started a new life without him, but now it was like she was hiding in the shadows and calling his name.

For me, the darkness sounded like my grandfather. I never knew my dad, and my mom worked two jobs to provide for me, so my grandparents pretty much raised me. I didn't mind. They were both good people, and I'd loved them very much. Me and Mom lived with them. I slept in Mom's old room, and she slept on the couch. When I was little, my grandfather was my best friend. We built extensive, highly detailed model train dioramas on top of his workbench, outfitting them with little houses and trees and fake gra.s.s and tiny cars. When I was twelve, he took me on a trip to Norfolk to see the navy ships heading out to sea, and another time, he took me on a weekend visit to Colonial Williamsburg. In the summertime, he used to take me out on the back roads in his car. When we got to a place where there was no traffic, I'd sit on his lap and he'd let me drive the car. He'd work the gas and brake while I steered. I'd loved him, and still did. Thought of him all the time. He'd pa.s.sed away when I was fifteen. Came in one day from mowing the lawn, drank half a gla.s.s of water, and collapsed in the kitchen. Heart attack, just like Christy's father. I remember how unreal it had all seemed, sitting there by his side along with my grandmother while we waited for the paramedics to arrive. We'd tried CPR and mouth to mouth, but neither worked. His lips were already turning blue by the time the ambulance pulled into the driveway. They said his death was quick, and that nothing could have been done, as if that was supposed to comfort me somehow.

As I'd gotten older, I sometimes forgot how his voice had sounded, but when I heard it there in the darkness, there was no question in my mind-it was him.

Except that it wasn't. I knew that somehow, on some primal, instinctive level I didn't understand; I knew the whispers in the darkness weren't those of my dead grandfather. The voice sounded exactly like him, so much that it made my chest ache. It even smelled like him-Old Spice and cherry-flavored pipe tobacco and the strong scent of mentholated arthritis cream. Those scents wafted out of the darkness, and they were strangely comforting. But then I realized that there was no breeze to blow them; the air was deathly still, almost stiflingly so. So how was I smelling them? Where was he?

And then, even as those thoughts crossed my mind, he appeared, standing on the far side of the town limits sign, right in the middle of the road. He didn't look like he had when he died-he looked younger than that, the grandfather of my fondest memories. He shone with a pale inner light, like there was a halo bleeding out of him. The light rolled off him like heat waves on a desert road, but it wasn't a warm radiance. That light was cool. Not that I felt it or anything. That's just how it looked. Cold.

False.

"h.e.l.lo, Robbie," he said. "Come and give your grandpa a big hug."

I tried to speak, but my mouth was dry. My tongue and lips felt like they were swelling. The smells grew stronger.

"Come on," he insisted. he insisted. "It's been so long. I've missed you." "It's been so long. I've missed you."

He held out his arms to me the way he used to, and I remembered how safe I'd felt with them wrapped around me, squeezing. I didn't feel that way now, and I imagined that if I went to him, the squeeze would be something less than tender or caring. I stayed where I was. In truth, I don't know if I could have moved even if I'd wanted to. My feet felt like they were ankle deep in cement. I glanced over at Russ and Christy. They both stared into the darkness, gaping in the same direction as I'd been, but judging from their reactions, neither was seeing what I saw. I wondered what they were seeing instead. Then I turned back to my grandfather and he smiled.

"Go away," I whispered.

"Come on, Robbie," he urged again. "At least come over here where I can see you better. You're all grown up now. All that blond hair and those blue eyes. You look like your mother when she was your age."

He beckoned. The darkness seemed to flow around him like ripples in a black, oily pool.

"Go away," I repeated, closing my eyes. "Please go away. You're not my grandfather. You're not real. You can't be. You died."

"I'm real," he said. "Touch me, Robbie. Feel me. I'm solid."